Area schools mostly make the grade

The city Department of Education gave mostly average to slightly above average marks to schools serving Little Neck youngsters, with rankings based on a variety of different categories capped by the release on Nov. 3 of high school letter grades.

Of the area schools surveyed, only one, on Marathon Parkway, got the highly-coveted A letter grade. The rest, including and in Little Neck, as well as Bayside High School and Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside, got overall B grades.

North Hills Elementary got high marks in the categories of School Environment and Student Performance. The school received an average "B" grade in the Student Progress category, with the median growth percentile in mathematics lagging slightly behind strong improvement on english language tests.

Meanwhile, David D. Porter received a good grade in terms of School Environment, but got only average marks in terms of Student Performance, which measures proficiency in math and english, and Student Progress, which compares test percentile growth with so-called "peer schools," as well as city schools as a whole.

Reacting to the letter grades this week was Education District Council 26 president Rob Caloras, who took umbrage with the city DOE's scoring of area schools. "The grade is 85 percent based on flawed tests," Caloras said. "It doesn't gauge progress in our schools, or anything else for that matter."

Caloras called out the city's measure of student progress on English and Math exams in particular. "If a kid gets a 100 percent on a test one year and then 100 percent the next ... how is that not progress?" he said of the city's rubric, which he claimed recognized only dramatic improvement in student exam scores.

Here's more score breakdowns for area schools: